Facets of the Soul
by Justin Robert Cooper

This anthology is a very personal and poetic account of a ‘troubled’ adolescent’s journey from the shelter of family and school into the realities of ‘making a living’ and ‘making a life’. This transition is difficult because he is alienated from a father he admires, and has lost a beloved grandfather.

The poet is a ‘loner’ after the style of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. His ‘Rosencrantz’s’ and ‘Guildenstern’s’ betray him, and the ‘Ophelia’s’ in his life cannot cope with his concept of reality. He contemplates “…to be or not to be” with a traditional “…bare bodkin” but eventually chooses a less painful method for his ‘attempt’ to commit suicide.

Fortunately he has used his poetry as a form of sublimation for the problems he is facing and he survives this experience. The reader, however, is left with the suspicion that the writer is perhaps ‘enjoying’ masochistic pleasure from his experiences...

But then, perhaps we were all poseurs at this young man's stage of development?

The poet has a good vocabulary and uses it well. He can also turn a good phrase:
“…The end of life: Self treason”.

He intuitively suits his poetry to his mood: When his thoughts are turbulent he uses a free verse form and punctuation is absent. This is an excellent use of his media as it creates a sense of confusion, which is a mirror of his mind at that time.

When he finds some resolution to a problem ‘aa’ and ‘bb’ rhyme schemes, seven beats to a line and relevant standard punctuation appears. This provides a suitably soothing and positive effect.

Dylan Thomas came to my mind after reading ‘The Father's Sins’. That must be a plus to my mind, as I consider Thomas's farewell salute to his own father a poetic masterpiece.

He should consider revising his page and verse formatting. I find blank pages distracting, and I appreciate symmetry of poetic presentation to my senses. This is a personal evaluation (I admire the metaphysical poets) but I think it is worth consideration as an addition to the writer’s poetic flow.

These poems are only some facets of the artist’s soul; work is still in progress in the making of a poet to be remembered.

I recommend this anthology to all of us, especially poets and other writers, who remember their own involved past, and are curious about the future of this budding poet, caught up with the declaration of his negative emotions.

Gloomwing Review by Vangerry M. Oldham

Pages: 48
Softcover ISBN: 1-4116-4683-5
E-Book ($4.61) Softcover ($10.10) available at http://www.lulu.com/content/158387

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